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Once again, NASA is asking for ideas to rescue Hubble from certain death
Confirmed
In Short: NASA is seeking proposals from the private sector to rescue the Hubble Space Telescope, which is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere by 2033 or 2034.
The space agency issued a Request for Information (RFI) on October 29, 2026, to learn more about industry capabilities for in-space servicing to support the Hubble Space Telescope.
The RFI invites companies to express interest in three potential activities: boosting Hubble to a higher orbit to extend its scientific lifetime, servicing the telescope to enhance its capabilities, or safely disposing of it through a controlled atmospheric re-entry or orbital disposal at the end of its mission.
NASA is particularly interested in companies’ current and near-term capabilities for capturing Hubble and boosting it to an altitude of at least 600 kilometers (373 miles), enhancing the telescope’s performance, or guiding Hubble to a controlled reentry.
The requirement includes that the boost and/or servicing mission must not harm the Hubble Space Telescope and that this mission is expected to occur by 2032.
Hubble, which has been operating for more than 30 years, continues to deliver discoveries that deepen our understanding of the universe.
The final shuttle servicing flight in 2009 did not reboost the telescope’s orbit, and with the retirement of the shuttle fleet two years later, Hubble has steadily lost altitude with no way to stave off eventual destruction.
Jared Isaacman, a billionaire commercial astronaut, approached NASA in 2022 about a servicing mission to Hubble with a team of astronauts on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been a national icon, fundamentally changing how humanity views the universe for more than 35 years.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been responsible for some of the most jaw-dropping images of our solar system, taken more than three decades since its launch into low-Earth orbit in 1990.
The Hubble Space Telescope has traveled more than 8 billion km (5 billion mi) and gathered more than 1.7 million observations of the Universe.
The Hubble Space Telescope still shines in the eyes of astronomers after 36 years in orbit, but it is not as nimble as it once was.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope just revealed a mystery in our cosmic neighborhood, and the telescope has been instrumental in studying 37 nearby dwarf galaxies.
What this adds
The RFI is a significant step in NASA's efforts to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been a cornerstone of astronomical research for decades.
The private sector's involvement could potentially offer innovative and cost-effective solutions to keep Hubble operational.
The Hubble Space Telescope's legacy is vast, and its continued operation is crucial for ongoing scientific discoveries.
What's confirmed
- NASA issued a Request for Information Oct. 29 to learn more about industry capabilities for in-space servicing to support the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope.
- “Hubble is a national icon that has fundamentally changed how humanity views our universe for more than 35 years,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington.
- In a post on NASA’s site, Administrator Jared Isaacman said: Hubble still has important science ahead of it, and we should be looking at every reasonable opportunity to keep it delivering for as long as possible … If there are innovative and cost-effective ways to extend the life of an asset already on orbit, we owe it to the American taxpayer and the scientific community to explore them.
- The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than 30 years and continues to deliver discoveries that deepen our understanding of the universe.
What's still developing
- At its present rate of altitude loss, NASA's most famous telescope is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime in 2033 or 2034, at which point it will come crashing down like a comet, according to Space.com, possibly endangering human life on its descent It doesn't have to be that way, though.
- So NASA is taking proposals from the private sector to see if anyone can save it.
- The weird weather pattern didn’t show up in years of observations by NASA’s Cassini mission An image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a 10-sided atmospheric wave surrounding Saturn’s south pole, as seen on August 29, 2025.
- The decagon first became apparent in Hubble images gathered last autumn; astronomers then revisited observations from as early as 2023 and confirmed it was visible then as well, albeit less defined.
- Using Hubble along with telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, the researchers detected repeating patterns in Betelgeuse’s behavior.
- In a paper published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers using Hubble studied 37 nearby dwarf galaxies — small galaxies containing a few thousand to hundreds of millions of stars — and found that much of the oxygen they expected to see is missing.
- The 42-foot-long 18,000-pound telescope is named for the late Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer who championed the value of space telescopes throughout her career and was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope.
- As such, she is often referred to as “the mother of Hubble.” The the new telescope is scheduled for launch atop a triple-core SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at the Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m.
- Hubble’s visible-light view shows the cat as a dark, elongated dust pillar and hints of young forming stars, while Webb’s infrared-light imagery unveils many stars and other hidden details.
- The NASA/ESA Hubble and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescopes recently stared at an eerie star-forming scene within the Carina Nebula, a massive gas and dust cloud located approximately 7500 light-years away from Earth.
- Chandra X-ray data (magenta) pinpoint powerful black hole activity and hot gas, while optical data (blue and white) from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope illuminate vast stellar nurseries hidden behind interstellar dust.
- The observation it took on the day of its 200,000th orbit was characteristic of the very scientific objective for which Hubble was named: measuring the expansion rate of the Universe - aka.